Within the food industry various methods and systems are known for detecting undesired objects in food products and in particular in meat products. As regards meat products it may be of particular relevance to detect bones or bone fragments, for example in connection with meat parts, where a deboning and/or trimming has been performed and where it is desired to ensure that all bones have been removed and/or where it is desired to ensure that fragments of bones have not been left in the meat when performing the deboning process.
In the prior art various methods and systems have been described for detecting e.g. bone or bone fragments in meat parts by means of X-ray detection means and removing meat parts, which comprises detected bone or bone fragments from e.g. a stream of meat parts, for example in order to manually process such meat parts.
An example of such a technique is disclosed in WO 2005/090964 A1, wherein it is described that boneless or deboned meat or fish products are conveyed along a conveyor, wherein the products are formed individually into a shape of substantially uniform thickness while passing an X-ray emitting and sensing means, whereafter image analysis is performed to detect any bone or bone fragments. It is registered which food items or which part of a stream of food items contains bones, bone fragments or other undesired materials and such food items, a whole part of the stream comprising a plurality of food items, many of which do not contain undesired materials, must be removed or routed away in order to ensure that a detected undesired material is removed.
WO 02/43502 A2 relates to an apparatus and a method for detecting and removing undesirable material such as bones, fat, metal, etc. from a workpiece, e.g. a food product. The workpieces are supplied one by one, i.e. separate from each other, by means of a conveyor to a computer-operated X-ray detection apparatus for detecting the position of the individual workpiece and for detecting possible undesirable material and the location of this in each of the workpieces. By means of a cutter a part of the workpiece containing the undesirable materiel is cut off and is later downstream removed manually or by a pickup device. As the workpieces are supplied and conveyed separately one by one and as the detection is performed for each workpiece separately, this will limit the number of workpieces that can be processed per time unit.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved system and an improved method for inspecting meat for undesired objects and for removing such undesired objects.
In particular, it is an object to provide such a system and such a method, which can perform in a highly automatic manner and whereby an efficient operation and a relatively high flow can be facilitated.
Further, it is an object to minimize the amount of meat that is being removed together with the undesired objects.
It is a particular relevant object of the invention to provide a system and a method for inspecting e.g. a stream or flow of relatively small meat parts, for example trim parts, ground meat, etc. in a quick and effective manner and still be able to ensure that only a minimum of meat parts are removed, when an undesired object is removed.
It is noted that in connection with the present application it will be understood that meat parts comprise meat parts and/or trim parts of animals such as calves, pigs, sheep, etc., and that the meat and meat parts also includes meat from e.g. poultry, fish, etc. Further, it is noted that the meat parts may also be ground meat.
Further, it is noted that the undesired objects, for which the meat parts are inspected in accordance with the present invention, in particular are bones and bone fragments, but that also other objects may be detected, for example metal, glass, plastic, stones, cartilage and other foreign objects. Even further, it is noted that the undesired objects that are detected, may be e.g. fat, meat having particular meat characteristics, e.g. a high fat content, etc. Further meat characteristics that may be detected, are e.g. blood stains, abscess, infections, etc.
In particular, it is a further object of the present invention to present a system and a method, which provides an improved processing speed and efficiency and by means of which the capacity of the radiation detection facility can be used in an optimal manner.
These and other objects are achieved by the invention as explained in further detail in the following.